Panic churned in my guts as we rose on that final day, knowing today was the day we’d descend to the surface. Everyone else seemed to feel as I did, and Kat, Theresa, Melanie, and I got dressed silently, shrugging into the plain grey uniforms we’d been given not long after arriving on the ship. Over the lightweight grey track pants and grey tank tops, we put on our solar protection jackets – pale tan in colour, with long sleeves and a hood with an attached visor. We’d been given packs, too, with supplies: rations; water bottles; first aid kits; and futuristic, too-powerful-for-over-the-counter sunscreens that went on thick and blue on our skin.

Chapman and a couple of other soldiers, all wearing solar protection jackets over their uniforms, showed up at our door a few moments after we’d gotten dressed.

“Time to go,” she said, her face blank.

The four of us looked at each other, saying nothing. Because really, what was there to say? Good luck everyone, don’t die.

The four of us were led through the long curving hall to a part of the ship we’d never been in, coming to a stop before a large set of round, metal doors. Chapman yanked some kind of badge from her pocket and tapped it against a small screen beside the doors, causing them to to slide open smoothly.

“Welcome to the bridge,” she said, gesturing us inside.

“Whoa,” Theresa whispered, and Kat whistled, breaking the stoic silence of our little group.

I sucked in a breath. Whoa indeed.

We’d gotten used to the spaceship over the past couple of weeks, and it no longer felt foreign to us. But this? This was something straight out of a science fiction movie set. The bridge was large, curving, with at least twelve different seats and console areas set up, where military pilots and technicians were typing and working with singular focus. Colonel Jackson stood at the front, his hands tucked neatly behind his back, and behind him was a massive open view screen, a gargantuan windshield that yielded us our first glimpse of the planet.

The photos we’d seen did nothing to convey the reality of what we saw now. There as a savage sort of beauty to the planet, its surface a deep, coppery gold, the asteroid belt encircling it like a brutal studded belt.

“I didn’t know we were already so close,” I said, my voice tight. I wasn’t ready. We weren’t ready. This can’t be actually happening.

“Good, everyone’s here and equipped with their packs.” Colonel Jackson nodded approvingly as Kat, Theresa, Melanie, and I stepped forward to join the rest of the women already present on the bridge.

“It will take us about fifteen minutes to descend to the planet’s surface.”

Holy shit. Fifteen minutes? Fifteen minutes until we potentially get blasted off the face of this fucking world? Great.

“Don’t we need to, like, strap in or something?” Someone asked from nearby, but Colonel Jackson shook his head.

“No, our tech is much more advanced than what you’ve seen in the movies. It should be a pretty smooth ride, but I will direct you all to sit against the back wall of the room in case it gets a little bumpy.”

My hands shaking, I took off my backpack and sat against the wall, gripping the grey fabric of the bag between my legs. Theresa gave me a wan smile, her face tinted pale blue from the sunscreen we’d put on.

Colonel Jackson remained standing at the front.

“Now, as we’ve already outlined, when we get to the planet’s surface, we will remain at the vessel until the natives come to us. Based on how territorial they are, and how in tune they seem to be with the land, we don’t think it will take too long. In the area where we are landing, it’s currently about halfway through their sixteen hours of daylight.”

“Love getting ready to greet some territorial aliens without knowing any bloody verbs or adjectives or the way to say ‘friendly humans, please don’t eat us,’” I muttered darkly, and Theresa gave me a comforting pat on the knee. At least, she was trying to be comforting. But I could see that my words had worried her. I wasn’t the only one who thought my lack of acquired alien language skill could potentially fuck us over big time.

The colonel gave a few more instructions, reminding us of things we already knew – no aggressive, sudden movements, only get as close as necessary to communicate – before he took his seat in one of the main console chairs facing the windshield.

“Here we go. Commence descending protocols.”

Descending to the planet’s surface was indeed nothing like the movies. It was about as rocky as an airplane coming down. We got a little jostled, but before we knew it we had landed, clouds of coppery dust rising from the sand was we did so.

The colonel stood, grinning, then shrugged into his own solar protection jacket, turning to face us with triumphantly open arms.

“Everyone, welcome to -”

An ear-splitting crash and an inhuman shriek split the air. Glass exploded in towards us, and something sharp and bloody and black burst through the front of Colonel Jackson’s chest, tearing his uniform and leaving him slumped to the ground when whatever it was withdrew.

Screams rang out around us, as did more of the catastrophic shrieking, like metal grating against metal.

I could barely process what was going on. Colonel Jackson, along with all the pilots and soldiers who had been at the front of the bridge, were on the ground, dead and bleeding. My mouth dropped open in horror as I finally clued into why.

Alien creatures that I couldn’t identify were pouring into the shattered windshield opening. There were like nothing I’d ever seen on earth – a metre tall, at least, resembling some kind of coconut crab/spider/scorpion mashup. Their powerful, armoured black legs scrabbled into the room, stabbing soldiers with their spiked tails as they did so.

I was frozen to the spot, as was Theresa, but Melanie sprang up. Kat quickly followed, and they yanked at our elbows.

“Get the fuck up,” Kat screamed over the sounds, and I shook myself, jumping onto shaky legs.

“We gotta go,” Melanie said. Her voice was strangely smooth and unperturbed.

The other girls were all also jumping to their feet now. The remaining soldiers were firing their guns towards the horrific creatures, but that seemed to do nothing at all. I mean, they were strong enough to crash through a goddamn spaceship’s wall. Don’t see what a bullet will do.

Kat seemed to have the same thought.

“We’re on another planet, on a spaceship out of the goddamn future, and all you guys have are shitty guns?” She screamed her question at Chapman, who was closest to us, standing between us and the creatures, firing her pistol over and over. Her face was pale, her jaw set, as she pulled the trigger again and again and again.

“Dude, open the fucking door,” Kat yelled at Chapman, pounding against the doors we’d entered through just a short while ago. Everyone was now crowding around the doors, scratching and yanking at the smooth surface. A muscle in Chapman’s jaw jumped, but she kept firing. The crab creatures had gotten distracted with their first kills, stopping to start eating the people who’d fallen at the front of the bridge, but they made short work of those bodies, advancing towards us once again.

“We’re gonna be next,” I shouted, grabbing Chapman’s shoulder and shaking as hard as I could. This seemed to startle her out of her gun-happy reverie. Her gaze swung between her fallen comrades and us.

“Fuck it. I did not sign up for this,” she muttered, yanking the key badge from her pocket once again and smashing it against the screen at the doors. They slid open, and we all fell through the doors in a tangled mass of panicked limbs. Chapman ushered everyone forward, screaming at us to, “go, go, go!” while she kept her gun trained on the creatures that were almost upon us. Just as one was reaching its barbed tail towards her, she vaulted through the doors while at the same time flipping the key badge against the screen. The doors slid shut, trapping one of the creature’s scrabbling black legs. I had assumed the leg would snap at the force of the doors closing, but rather, it was using its ferocious alien strength to pry those doors back open.